Huli Ka Bakla (Bakla, Bakla, Pano Ka Ginawa?)

" "HULI KA BAKLA" (Bakla, Bakla, Pano Ka Ginawa?) "

Oil on Wood Panel

25.9” x 34.9”

2022

A moment of deafening silence, invasion, and obstruction, of anxiety and pressure. The self-portrait depicts a momentous scenery most Queer people face and fear - being "caught" "outed" and "revealed" by an unwelcoming, destructive and discriminating society.

Dean Labastera an aspiring Art educator, is a Queer artist from Bulacan that specializes in doll art making and other traditional multimedia arts. Influenced by artists like Francis Bacon and Ken Currie, different from her jolly and humorous personality, Dean has a fascination with blacks and reds, blood and flesh, and most dark themes that she deems as a powerful nature of truth and contrast against the blinding oblivion of light and idealistic world. Forwarding queer narratives, Dean’s works depict the dark areas of traumas and experiences of people of the LGBTQ+ community, and the deeply rooted generational and societal discrimination and oppression against them.